NYCC 09: Origin and Foundation: Dave Elliott on Radical

By Bryan Edward Hill February 6, 2009 04:26am ET

NYCC 09: Dave Elliott on Radical

Hotwire, by Steve Pugh

Fresh off of Diamond Distribution naming Radical Publishing their “Best
New Publisher of the Year 2008”, I sat down with David at Yakitori in
Manhattan to eat bacon wrapped scallops and discuss his path to
Radical, and the future of the new kid on the block of comics
publishers.

Bryan Edward Hill: First, let me congratulate you on the award
from Diamond. That must feel like vindication for all of your hard
work. Before we get to Radical Publishing, why don’t you give readers a
crash course in how you started working in comics.

Dave Elliott: Jesus… Uh, well… I know I first decided I was
going to work in comics by age 11. I was selling drawings of TV and
comic characters at school when I was 8. Don’t remember the first comic
I ever picked up, my mom started giving them to me before I could talk.

I studied Printmaking and Illustration at college. My first work after
graduating was doing storyboard work for Richard Williams animation and
Halas & Batchelor. Actually, while at college I did a couple of
weeks of unpaid clean-up work on the animation for Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

BEH: How’d you land that?

DE: One of my best friends was the son of the head of the
British Board of Film Censors and he showed some of my work to Alan
Parker. I later tried out for Another Country for Alan, but my style
was a little too comicky for the project.

After that I was doing a lot of illustration work, but still spending
way too much money on comics (those days you could afford to buy the
entire line of Marvel comics).

BEH: Ahhh, I figured you for a DC boy.

DE: I started out on DC Comics, Batman, Superman, Hawkman and
Aquaman, then switched to Marvel just before Jack Kirby left for DC, so
when he did I started to buy both, so I was never really a DC or a
Marvel guy, just read the comics that I liked. I should mention that my
biggest comic inspirations were all the British comics like TV21, Look
& Learn, Eagle, Boys World, Countdown, Look-In and then 2000 AD.
The art in those comics were years ahead of anything else. Then came
Tintin and Asterix.

BEH: So getting us back to how you got into the business…

DE: Sorry, but that stuff is still great to look at and a lot of
the stories held up fairly well too, the writers didn’t write down as
much as they did later.

Anyway, I first started in comics working for the legendary Dez Skinn.
I didn’t realize at the time, but he was quite the controversial
character in the industry. Warrior
was just wrapping up and he was still involved with Eclipse on the
material they were reprinting from it. My first ever job in comics was
cleaning up and re-inking a couple of Marvelman (Miracleman)
stories by Don Lawrence for a 3D special they were doing. I was pissed
off with Dez later when I found out he was selling my inks as
originals. He just smiled and said that they were “originals” and he
didn’t put Don Lawrence’s name on them, but they were of Don’s artwork…
so I at least managed to get a beer out of him.

I then worked as his art director, editor, managing editor, production
manager and sometimes even cover artist at Quality Comics when they
took over reprinting the 2000 Ad material from Titan. It was during
this time that I was introduced to my ATOMEKA partner Garry Leach, who did such a great job inking issues #4 and #5 of Freedom Formula for Radical recently.

After a year of that I finally started to get more artwork gigs at 2000 AD
and Marvel UK. Most of it was inking work as I could do that reasonably
quickly. In fact it was there that I would meet David Hine, Richard
Starkings and Doug Braithwaite who I’ll be seeing this weekend at NY
Comic-Con.

BEH: David Hine is quite the up and coming writer.

DE: Hah, hah, ha… I’m sorry, but Dave has been writing and
drawing great stuff for years, so it is funny to hear him referred to
as “up and coming”. Dave and myself were both inkers at Marvel UK so I
knew first hand what it was like when you tried to get work as a writer
or penciler but every editor had you pigeon holed. That’s why when I
was hired as publisher for Tundra UK and Dave wanted to pitch me a
project, I was going to treat him just the same as a Steve Moore or a
Neil Gaiman.

The project he pitched was Strange Embrace. I read the
treatment and immediately loved it. It was dark and disturbing, but
filled with character and emotion. Kevin Eastman agreed with me, so we
commissioned the project. When the scripts came in I was blown away. I
read everyone and couldn’t stop myself from reading it as a reader not
an editor. Dave says I asked him to change just one thing in the entire
series, I can’t remember even that.

I was super-happy to have Richard Starkings collect it in color through Image last year. I cannot recommend that book enough.

Funny how certain things come full circle… I’m working with Dave on not
one but two projects now at Radical. We’re also going to be
republishing another Tundra UK/Atomeka originated project, The Lords of Misrule as well.

BEH: The Lords of Misrule, what’s that?

DE: When I started Tundra UK with Kevin Eastman, and my wife
Helen, I also hired two great editors from Marvel UK, Steve White and
Andy Seddon. Steve’s two best friends at the time were John Tomlinson
and Dan Abnett, two other Marvel editors. All three of them were also
very good writers and they had just finished a great mini-series there
with artist Gary Erskine, called the Knights of Pendragon So Steve asked me if it was okay if they pitched a couple of projects.

One was Pale Horses, that became Hypersonic at Dark Horse, while the other was The Lords of Misrule.
For the graphic novel we got Gary Erskine to do the interiors, but by
the time we decided to do the series, he was working on Pale Horses, so
we contracted Peter Snejbjerg. It was originally supposed to be in
color, although Peter’s line art is so strong, you wouldn’t know it
when Dark Horse printed it in black and white.

Misrule was a chilling horror story that played off of all the
urban myths, so I’m just very happy it can be finally colored and all
collected together finally in a single book.

BEH: You also gave Warren Ellis some of his first work, what was Warren like back then?

DE: Warren was one of those really annoying guys who always spoke with such confidence as though they were always right.

BEH: Was he?

DE: Yeah, usually… (laughs) I worked with Warren at Deadline,
John Brown publishing, Atomeka and then Tundra. Warren was one of those
idea engines that just couldn’t stop. He is still the energizer bunny
of ideas today.

BEH: And you’re printing his Hotwire mini-series at Radical now as well.

DE: Well, yes and no. Hotwire was something that was originally written by Warren for Tundra, but this Hotwire is only based
on that original story. Steve Pugh has completely re-written the story
and added a lot to it. Steve was the original co-creator for the
character and was halfway through drawing the book when Tundra shut
shop. Steve however carried on his love for the project and has been
developing it for years. So when Barry and myself finally got Radical
up and running, I knew what I wanted Steve to do as soon as he finished
Shark-Man.

BEH: That’s the second time you’ve given an artist the chance to show he can write as well.

DE: No, I’ve done that before with other artists. It was one of the main reasons Garry Leach and myself started A1
20 years ago. Every artist has a story inside them, even if it is just
a three pager. We just wanted to give them (and ourselves) the chance.

BEH: From working with you, I know that you get the best
material out of your writers, no matter their genre or perspective.
It’s a beautiful skill. Do you have a general philosophy you use when
editing a book?

DE: Sure, there are two possible hats I can wear. If it is
something the company owns and if it is something the creators brings
to us.

In your instance, with Orphan, I approached it from the
standpoint of helping you tell the story you wanted to do as best as
you could. That sometimes meant pushing you to explore areas of the
characters that you hadn’t considered before. It doesn’t mean changing
the story, but it can add greater depth to the characters without
sacrificing anything. It is about offering you suggestions and also
being a bouncing board for ideas. Ideas in our heads often sound
different when spoken aloud. It sounds weird but I’ve done it myself.
I’ve pitched ideas to Barry (Levine) and as soon as the words have left
my lips, I know he going to think I’m crazy and tell me “what are you
thinking?”

BEH: It seems that every week there’s a new publisher, new
series of books, new statements about how ‘awesome’ they are, blah,
blah, blah. What made you decide that working with Radical was the
right choice?

DE: Well when Barry and myself started “Radical” it wasn’t called that. Over ten years ago, I published a comic called Sharky
at Image and the day the first issue came out I received a phone call
from Barry wanting to option it. Little would I know then that I would
spend the next three or more years doing development for his company
Takoma Entertainment and later Brigade Pictures. So I guess we could
just as easily have become Takoma Comics or Brigade Publishing if we’d
managed to raise the money back then.

Over the years Barry and myself stayed in touch so it was a weird
feeling in 2007 when he called up telling me we were finally going to
achieve our dream.

BEH: I was around a little in that first year. It was war. What was the most challenging part of Radical: Year One?

DE: Wearing way too many hats. Being co-publisher, head of
sales, Editor-in Chief as well as editor on every project (including
the many that we helped creators develop but just didn’t happen for one
reason or other), developing all our initial marketing plans… It was
just too much. I saw Barry in NY in December and he thought I looked
like $###. I think I’d aged twenty years in 18 months. We didn’t have
our full funding in place so we all just had to suck it in and do the
work. We had a couple of mishaps, but fortunately only we really
spotted them.

BEH: You and your British humility. I can attest that it was
your knowledge and your relationships with creators that made the
difference. I remember what you did with Steve Moore and Hercules: The Thracian Wars...

DE: Well with Hercules the first thing I remember
saying to Barry was no sandals and togas. After other Hercules projects
in the past, I believed that ours should be character based. Barry and
myself went back and forth, entertaining a few pitches from other
writers, but I kept coming back to Steve Moore. While I knew in the US
he was relatively unknown, I knew Steve would be the person that would
give us a truly grounded, much darker version of the character than
anyone had done before. For anyone who remembers his “Father Shandor”
series from Warrior, you’ll know what I mean.

Then once Steve had given a brilliant outline, I went to my old friend
Jim Steranko to give us not only our first cover, but also the look for
the character. We wanted something mythical and symbolic, I knew Jim
would give us that. Well, Jim knocked it out of the park. It was
gorgeous and his single classic piece of artwork captured everything
that Steve had put down in words.

Then there were the other characters and the world to create. I had
previously worked with Richard Taylor and Weta Workshop on another
project, so asked Richard if they’d be interested in working on Hercules.
It’s funny, before we had even drawn page one of the comic, Barry had
taken this material and had the project optioned all before San Diego
Comic-Con of 2007.

Then after that we met with Imaginary Friends Studio and the work they
did was nothing sort of amazing. They did an equally good job on Caliber as well.

BEH: Let’s talk genre. What would you say Radical’s focus is?
Sci-Fi? Horror? Action? What can fans expect from the Radical
Publishing experience?

DE: Our focus is quality and high concept ideas. Sure the
majority will probably fall into the genres you mentioned, but Caliber
is an Arthurian western. Where do we put that? Western or fantasy? City of Dust is sci-fi and horror. Freedom Formula is drama, its action and its sci-fi as well.

BEH: Yeah, what drew me into Radical was talking to you and
seeing how much you agreed that you can elevate story quality in genre
without making the end product pretentious and boring.

Let’s talk Hollywood. One of the criticisms of new publishers like
Radical is that they don’t really care about comics. They just want to
make intellectual properties that are easy to sell to Hollywood and the
fans always get screwed in the end. Convince me that Radical is
different. Convince me that Radical loves its’ readers.

Shrapnel #1

DE: $1 comics. Hercules and Caliber were both square-bound, glossy, fully painted, for just $1. Shrapnel #1
was a 48 paged book for only $2.99. Come on, just look at any of these…
(a set of Radical books were spread over the table and chairs
surrounding us) Then ask me if we care about our readers. Anyone who
has read them knows. I’m not saying that they’ll be everybody’s cup of
tea, but you’ll feel the care that went into these books. I’ve staked
my entire career on that method. I can’t produce bad material and
neither can Barry. You may not like it, but you’re a real grinch if you
think they’re bad.

BEH: I’m almost convinced. What do you think is the most important promise to keep with new and existing fans?

DE: Just that we will always try to do our best. We have striven
to make sure our books always come out on time, in fact the first
complaint we received was that our books were shipping early. There may
be a book that comes out late, but I won’t push an artist to do
substandard work to get it out a week earlier. Quality wins out every
time with me.

BEH: So Barry Levine is pretty much your firewall against people influencing your stories, and he allows you to work in peace?

DE: No, it’s much more different than that. Barry and myself
work very closely together with our creators. Barry has an instinctive
feel for what works. Sometimes we disagree. Sometimes he wins,
sometimes I do, but the project is always the better for it. There are
projects that Barry gets very close to and I follow his lead on, others
where I work more closely with the creator, like with Sam Sarkar on Caliber or Steve Niles on City of Dust.

BEH: All right, you talked me down.

I always check in with you to see the future. Everyone’s chasing online
media, but they don’t know what to do with it. What are Radical
Publishing’s plans? Are they expanding into more than just comics and
movies?

DE: Ah, we have plans. To be honest, my focus is more and more
on the actually development of the property with the creator. We are
working with our partner Stormlion on the online and mobile phone
aspects of publishing. The future is coming, but we have to look beyond
just tomorrow and further down the path than that.

BEH: Nice to see a publisher not fighting the future. Okay,
here’s the test. Pretend I’m a new reader. I’ve got twenty bucks to
spend on comics. Normally it goes other places, but today I’m looking
at new stuff. Why should I spend the money on a Radical Publishing
title?

DE: New readers are more likely to be influenced by film and TV.
They want more than just one genre and they’re also not going to be
spending all their money on comics, so what we are looking to appeal to
is the person who loves comics but only wants to spend $20 a month. You
can’t buy all the Batman or Spider-Man books for that, let alone an
entire line… I just want people to know that the Radical “R” on the
book is a stamp of quality. That when someone picks up one of our
titles they know that they are going to get something very cool and
maybe next year they can pick up a sequel. I’ve long had the mainstream
approach to graphic novels, that anything produced of good quality will
always rise to the surface and that sequels come when they are ready
and not forced.

The other thing is that you have to make the retailers aware of what
you are doing. You can’t expect people to go in and ask a retailer to
order something, most people just wander in and if it isn’t there you
have lost the sale.

When we were gearing up at the beginning of last year, most of the
company got on the phone and between us all called every retailer we
had a number for. That was at least 3000. I personally called the top
400 stores. It was exactly how I launched A1
years ago. Grab a phone and go ‘grass-roots’. Over the years you see
what works and what doesn’t. I prefer the personal touch every time.

BEH: You’ve raised some great expectations to customers and
retailers alike. Better reach them. So what can we expect from you and
Radical in 2009?

DE: Ahhhh, now that would be telling. Barry is going to be
making some fairly substantial announcements at New York Comic Con.
Head to our panel at 5:15 on Saturday where he’ll be joined by Steve
Pugh, David Hine, Rick Remender, Ian Edginton, Arthur Suydam, Sam
Sarkar and Joltin’ Jim Steranko… You won’t regret it.

BEH: Anything you personally want to do more of this year?

DE: When you’re a creator and you spend all your time helping
others get their ideas together, you always feel the longing to create
more yourself. When I came up with a really different take on Aladdin I
had hoped to write the series myself, but I was just too busy and Barry
wanted to put it on the front burner, so Ian Edginton wrote it instead.

BEH: Was that hard?

DE: A little. Ian is an old friend and I love his work, so
asking him to do it was fairly painless. I’d originally written it with
more of a Pirates of the Caribbean meets Star Wars feel to it, but after talking with Barry and Ian it was decided to go darker in tone, more Lord of the Rings
with it. The premise is still pretty much the same, we kept Sinbad and
two genies in it, on a trip across the world. I’m very happy with the
way it is now, plus Patrick Reilly’s artwork is wonderful and Arthur
Suydam’s cover blew me away.

****

You can visit Radical Publishing at www.radicalcomics.com and drop by their booth (#1415) at NY Comic Con.

BRYAN EDWARD HILL is a storyteller, filmmaker and journalist. Currently
he is writing alongside Ron Marz in Broken Trinity: Aftermath for Top
Cow Productions. Visit his blog: www.thebryanhillproject.com